This invention relates to a feeder for feeding granular and dust coal to a coal-gasifying reactor operating under a pressure of 5 to 150 bars, comprising a stationary housing, which is connected to the coal inlet of the reactor and in which a lock chamber member is rotatably mounted, which is movable between a coal-receiving position and a coal-discharging position.
Known feeders for gasifying reactors consist either of stationary lock chamber containers, which are adapted to be charged and discharged, or of rotary star wheel feeders, such as are apparent from U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,412,118 and 1,814,787. These feeders are satisfactory in operation during the gasification of coal under approximately atmospheric pressure. During a gasification process under superatmospheric pressure product gas is received by the emptied volume of the feeder. This represents an undesired and disturbing loss. This loss of product gas increases as the gasification pressure rises.